Development Channel » Terra Lawson-Remerhttp://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel
Issues and innovations in global economic developmentFri, 31 Jul 2015 16:30:02 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2Will Justice Be Part of the Post-2015 Development Agenda?http://feeds.cfr.org/~r/DevelopmentChannel/tlawson-remer/~3/lqFg2cwFUg4/
http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2014/03/21/will-justice-be-part-of-the-post-2015-development-agenda/#commentsFri, 21 Mar 2014 15:34:15 +0000http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/?p=3592This piece is part of an ongoing Development Channel series on global justice and development. Whether or not justice will be...]]>

Whether or not justice will be part of the world’s post-2015 global development agenda remains an open question.

Many states have expressed support for including a strong commitment to justice in any new development goals. The Open Working Group of the United Nations, which is charged with putting together a framework proposal for those new goals, recently released a statement that endorsed the inclusion of rule of law and justice as important for peace, security, and capable institutions.

However, some states have raised concerns regarding infringements on national sovereignty, and others argue that the focus on domestic justice reform neglects governance and rule of law failures at the international level.

In response to this high-level dithering, civil society groups around the world have issued a “Justice 2015” appeal: an open letter to the UN General Assembly that urges the inclusion of justice in the post-2015 development goals.

A recent blog post from Nicholas Menzies of the World Bank proposes a menu approach of justice targets and indicators that could be used in the post-2015 development framework. My previous posts on this same topic explored the main trade-offs and issues that need to be considered in measuring justice and rule of law.

High diplomacy usually leaves little opportunity for outside input, but this case seems to be an exception. On April 24-25, the President of the General Assembly will host a Thematic Debate on “Ensuring Stable and Peaceful Societies.” And on June 9-10 there will be a High Level Event on Human Rights and the Rule of Law in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. In both cases, leaders will be looking to civil society for guidance.

What do you think?

]]>http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2014/03/21/will-justice-be-part-of-the-post-2015-development-agenda/feed/0http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2014/03/21/will-justice-be-part-of-the-post-2015-development-agenda/Welcome to the CFR Special Series on Global Justicehttp://feeds.cfr.org/~r/DevelopmentChannel/tlawson-remer/~3/uUcC5E_n2iY/
http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2014/02/20/welcome-to-the-cfr-special-series-on-global-justice/#commentsThu, 20 Feb 2014 17:50:46 +0000http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/?p=3531In the coming months, the Development Channel will devote a special series to the theme of Global Justice. We will...]]>

In the coming months, the Development Channel will devote a special series to the theme of Global Justice. We will explore the relationship between written law, access to justice, and the realization of freedom and opportunity for all people.

The series will highlight diverse perspectives from practitioners and experts around the world, who will shed light on issues that are often invisible to those not directly affected by injustices. The first piece in the series, from Natalie Bridgeman Fields, founder and executive director of Accountability Counsel, stressed the importance of impartial arbitration of disputes between communities and major global development finance institutions like the World Bank, to ensure that the needs of the worst-off are not ignored in development projects. Upcoming pieces will investigate global justice from a variety of perspectives, examining issues as diverse as land grabs, legal empowerment, and how the international community can better support communities in their struggles for dignity, fairness, and sustainable livelihoods.

In my series last year on post-2015 development issues, I argued that justice is fundamental to global development, and that it is feasible, politically possible, and imperative to include governance and human rights in the post-2015 global development agenda. I have since argued that to realize those goals we need not only fair rules on paper, but also empowered people and communities with access to advocates who will work to ensure that justice is made real for the worst-off – a “lawyers without borders” approach.

What do you think? How does justice relate to development? Are these concepts inextricably intertwined, or are they distinct policy agendas with inevitable trade-offs, as some of my own research suggests? To submit an Op-Ed for consideration for inclusion in our Global Justice series, email me at tlawson-remer@cfr.org.

Last week, a United Nations expert panel issued a harsh report expressing concern over the construction of a $12 billion steel project in Odisha, India, financed by the South Korean steel conglomerate POSCO. The project reportedly threatens to forcibly displace over 22,000 people and disrupt the livelihoods of many thousands more. The forests and fields now claimed by the Indian government to build the sprawling project have long been occupied by locals, who rely on the land for their livelihoods.

As I demonstrated in my Brooklyn Journal of International Law article last year, the tension between aggregate economic growth and the property rights of vulnerable groups is a longstanding development challenge. Often, growth-enhancing land acquisitions financed by foreign investors forcibly displace the original resource users and ignore their property rights claims, intensifying property insecurity and resource scarcity—even while bringing macroeconomic growth.

Legally, governments should protect the rights of all their citizens—rich and poor. But the customary rights of subsistence local resource owners are too often ignored by elites, who sometimes even pocket kickbacks from the transnational investments that displace these local resource users.. In India, residents of Odisha decry government ineptitude and corruption for jeopardizing their property rights and livelihoods. POSCO likewise criticizes the government for not effectively resolving land disputes, which have delayed construction for almost eight years. If rights were fairly recognized and adequate compensation granted to current users, then both local owners and aspiring investors who want to play by fair rules would be better off.

Raquel Rolnik, UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, stressed that “forced evictions constitute gross violations of human rights,” in her statement regarding the Odisha steel project. But what can be done when governments fail to protect human rights and global companies like POSCO stand to benefit?

International investors finance these projects and own the companies that develop them, so will profit from their success. These global investors therefore have an ethical obligation to ensure that the rights of all affected communities are respected, in order to promote economic development that is inclusive and sustainable, and not just beneficial to a wealthy few. In the case of the steel project in Odisha, POSCO’s international investors include ABP, Norges Bank Investment Management, Bank of New York Mellon, Blackrock, Deutsche Bank, and JPMorgan Chase.

Fortunately, some of these leading investors already have a framework to safeguard environmental and human rights norms for the projects in which they are invested. The Equator Principles — currently followed by 78 financial institutions, covering over 70 percent of international project finance debt in emerging markets — codify norms for human rights, labor rights, and the environment. The principles also reflect a consensus among multilateral development banks and other development finance institutions regarding environmental and social standards.

These principles should be extended to cover all private sector investments, not just project finance, so that they would apply to cases like POSCO’s proposed steel plant, which now threatens thousands of poor rural residents. In addition, the principles need to be strengthened to prevent free riding by member companies seeking to boost their reputations without taking the trouble of actually complying with the principles. An independent monitoring mechanism should be established to ensure that all Equator Principle signatories are really playing by the rules.

When voluntary measures fail, mere UN reports, however harsh, are not enough to change the facts on the ground. Impacted communities need advocates to represent their interests in complex legal disputes, which entangle investors from many countries. As I have argued elsewhere, mobilizing international corporate lawyers to represent marginalized communities around the world would level the playing field, and would help ensure the rules of the global economy work for everyone, not just the rich and powerful.

]]>http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/10/09/posco-vs-the-people/feed/1http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/10/09/posco-vs-the-people/What’s Next for Global Development?http://feeds.cfr.org/~r/DevelopmentChannel/tlawson-remer/~3/vhAvZXw8UoA/
http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/09/23/whats-next-for-global-development/#commentsMon, 23 Sep 2013 19:13:26 +0000http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/?p=3243This week, the United Nations convenes its sixty-eight General Assembly session, bringing together heads of state and other high officials...]]>

This week, the United Nations convenes its sixty-eight General Assembly session, bringing together heads of state and other high officials from all 193 members of the UN. Although many pressing global challenges crowd the agenda of world leaders, the major theme of this year’s session is the global development agenda after 2015, when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which have guided global development policy since 2000, expire. In several earlier blog posts, I discussed issues that should be considered in crafting the new development agenda. Now the international community must come together to determine what comes next.

Even though economic growth has brought wealth to many formerly poor countries such as China, India, and Brazil, over three billion people remain trapped in poverty worldwide. The tragedy of poverty is not restricted to poor countries. Indeed, many of the global poor live in rich or middle income countries, and have seen the fortunes of their neighbors rise, while they have been left out and left behind. Thus, the new post-2015 development agenda must address inequality as well as poverty, to ensure that average improvements do not mask intractable suffering, and to focus global attention on the challenges facing the most vulnerable.

At the same time, there is an emerging global consensus that environmental sustainability should be a central development goal. The landmark Rio+20 conference on sustainable development, which took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012, launched the drafting process of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs aim to build upon the MDGs, but with a clear commitment to safeguarding the environment for future generations. At a local level, environmental degradation threatens the resources and livelihoods of subsistence farmers and pastoralists; with rivers and forests polluted and misused, they have no way to make even a meager living. And at a global level, climate change caused by unsustainable fossil fuel use is increasingly generating unpredictable droughts and floods, which devastate the poor, and threatening small island nations with rising sea levels.

The UN must forge a new development agenda that tackles these concerns regarding environmental sustainability and inequality, in addition to other issues such as rule of law, good governance, personal security, and human rights — all of which are both critical means for improving wellbeing, as well as important ends in and of themselves.

The UN’s task is further complicated by the fact that many of the most potent tools in the fight against global poverty are outside the organization’s purview. Thanks to the integration of global markets, the rules governing the global economy are now some of most significant determinants of prosperity and poverty. These economic rules influence property rights, capital markets and global financial flows, multinational banks and investors, and legal claims and mechanisms for redress – all of which have profound implications for the global poor. The UN recognizes the importance of these issues, but economic governance negotiations usually occur in intimate meetings between finance ministers, not showy events among foreign ministers.

Still, the UN has the unique and crucial power to coordinate and solidify global development guidelines for the future. This coming week the General Assembly is holding six events on the theme “The Post-2015 Development Agenda: Setting the Stage,” including high-level events about women, youth, civil society, human rights, good governance, the rule of law, South-South cooperation, communications technologies, global partnerships, water, sanitation, and sustainable energy. Given that nearly half of the world’s population is still trapped in poverty, hopefully these meetings will be more than just rhetoric, and will bring the world one step closer to realizing sustainable and inclusive development.

]]>http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/09/23/whats-next-for-global-development/feed/1http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/09/23/whats-next-for-global-development/Measuring Human Rights Fulfillmenthttp://feeds.cfr.org/~r/DevelopmentChannel/tlawson-remer/~3/2J1wx63jFgw/
http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/08/29/measuring-human-rights-fulfillment/#commentsThu, 29 Aug 2013 13:14:22 +0000http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/?p=3068Unlike other economic and social metrics of performance, human rights, as codified in international human rights laws, are an irreducible, non-negotiable...]]>

Unlike other economic and social metrics of performance, human rights, as codified in international human rights laws, are an irreducible, non-negotiable framework for assessing wellbeing. Adopted by countries through binding international treaties, human rights represent an explicit consensus between countries about fundamental rights and obligations. Not only have world leaders and international organizations agreed that human rights norms should be binding legal commitments; domestic parliaments have also debated and ratified human rights treaties, which reflect and build upon moral and ethical norms fundamental to free societies. A rights-based approach to development differs fundamentally from other approaches because the rights of the few cannot be sacrificed to improve the wellbeing of the greater population. In other words, governments cannot throw a few people under the bus in order to better the lot of everyone else.

These are laudable goals, but they are difficult to measure. Thus, over the past five years, I have been working with a number of colleagues to develop a Social & Economic Rights Fulfillment (SERF) Index, which measures the performance of countries and provinces on their fulfillment of economic and social rights obligations, based on objective survey data collected by official statistical agencies.The project has been challenging. States are not obligated to fulfill all guaranteed economic and social rights to the greatest extent possible immediately, due to the challenge of resource constraints. But over time, countries must progressively realize these rights by devoting the maximum of available resources toward their fulfillment. This progressive realization approach has long complicated and frustrated efforts to hold countries’ accountable for fulfillment of rights obligations. Without an evidence base for assessing performance, states can escape from their human rights obligations by claiming inadequate resources.

The SERF Index reveals that this “resource constraints” excuse does not hold up to the evidence. The index overcomes the longstanding measurement challenge–allowing an apples-to-apples comparisons across countries by using an Achievement Possibilities Frontier (APF) to estimate states’ social and economic rights obligations. We find that some countries with similar income levels perform very differently in terms of rights fulfillment. For example, The Gambia, with a per capita income of $1900, has a primary school enrollment rate of only eighty-one percent, but Tanzania, with a roughly equivalent (and even lower) income of $1600, has enrollment rates above ninety-four percent.

Social and economic rights fulfillment is only one aspect of wellbeing and cannot replace other important metrics of countries’ progress and performance, such as those discussed in my previous blog posts. But as a normative framework firmly grounded in both longstanding ethical imperatives and international law, human rights fulfillment should be recognized as a useful measure of countries’ status and progress, especially as the global community reexamines the fundamental meaning of development.

]]>http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/08/29/measuring-human-rights-fulfillment/feed/1http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/08/29/measuring-human-rights-fulfillment/Responses to Posts on Alternative Development Measureshttp://feeds.cfr.org/~r/DevelopmentChannel/tlawson-remer/~3/ZsSGBaAji54/
http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/08/26/responses-to-posts-on-alternative-development-measures/#commentsMon, 26 Aug 2013 14:49:51 +0000http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/?p=3055My recent posts on alternative development measures generated an outpouring of comments. To keep the conversation going, I would like...]]>

My recent posts on alternative development measures generated an outpouring of comments. To keep the conversation going, I would like to highlight some responses to the posts and encourage you to share your own thoughts in the comments section below.

Our lessons “What’s Up with the GDP?” and “Livin’ the Good Life” would be great resources for teachers to use with their middle and high school students to examine the big themes and complex issues surrounding the essential questions, what is real wealth?, what makes for a happy life?, how can individual achievement, collective action and the common good be balanced in a thriving economic system? Find more @ facingthefuture.org.

Thank you for this blog and I look forward to sharing it with our large national and international teacher networks.

From Howard Katzman:

I would like to recommend life expectancy as a composite figure that reflects the evolving quality of life.

Johan Galtung wrote about structural violence or a form of violence where a social structure or social institution harms people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs. Structural violence is a high cause of premature death and unnecessary disability. As a result, it can be reflected in life expectancy.

Every index listed to measure the quality of life affects life expectancy. Using life expectancy can take into account the differing expectations of different cultures.

From Yijia Liang:

This is an interesting article that points to the necessity of reevaluating how we judge development within a country. I agree with the fact that environmental concerns and degrees of human freedom comes into play (seems to point to China), but how should we balance that with economic growth? That is, how should we weigh the other factor’s importance with per capita income? It almost begs for an absolute number determining rate/level of development, yet obviously that’s unattainable. Is there a way we can judge how important these other factors are? Also, how will this method of evaluating be opposed to by countries such as China, Russia, and other economic powers that do indeed sacrifice environmental concerns and human rights?

From Lal D Rai:

Most of the theories of development do not precisely define development or do not define at all what development means! But by implications some understand that development means modernisation, other say it is political and economic restructuring to produce a more even distribution of fruits of development in society and without prejudice against women folks, still others argue that development means empowerment and self-reliance through personal and communal liberation from oppression. There are other themes, like basic needs, sustainable development/environment that intersect with the above three main perspectives, which themselves are neither mutually exclusive. In fact scholars in the field of development argue that all these three perspectives offer deep insights into the reality of development. Do you agree?

From Jake Grover:

“Other critics point to practical issues of public understanding – whereas the meaning of GDP is relatively clear, alternative measures are more complex and difficult to understand. Others argue that per capita income is both a powerful determinant and reasonable proxy for other aspects of development, since poorer countries also almost invariably have more poor people–rendering other measures redundant and distracting.”

So what is the response to these critiques? Both are powerful arguments that undermine the premise of the article, i.e., that income measures “represent a dramatic oversimplification of wellbeing.”

I believe we need to define “progress” before defining how to measure it. And that is actually the challenge. Based on our definitions, in that way we are going to propose metrics for understanding it better, and beyond that, we are going to formulate strategies and plans for foster it. I am afraid there will be no end for this conversation, but as development practitioners, defining it as end state and then strategize and plan it will require a starting point, which will inform the way of doing business, the way of measuring success. In World Vision, as a child-focused organization, we believe that the well being of people is visibly seen through the well being of children. Healthy societies will raise healthy children – from the holistic understanding of healthiness -. We believe children are the most vulnerable when societies are broken, families are dysfunctional and the government, as the main duty bearer, fails them. How to encourage Governments, development practitioners and the society as a whole to understand that progress is beyond to how much you can have on your pocket, but it is the quality of life individuals enjoy within their own environment. As organization, we bet for a better future for children. We believe that working with the Government, with society, parents, schools, and other key players for the local development, we will create the healthy environment children need for their holistic development and maximize their potential.

Thank you again for your feedback and please keep sharing your thoughts on this issue.

]]>http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/08/26/responses-to-posts-on-alternative-development-measures/feed/0http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/08/26/responses-to-posts-on-alternative-development-measures/An Emerging Consensus on the Meaning of Developmenthttp://feeds.cfr.org/~r/DevelopmentChannel/tlawson-remer/~3/9Jf8tv7yohU/
http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/08/20/an-emerging-consensus-on-the-meaning-of-development/#commentsTue, 20 Aug 2013 14:05:11 +0000http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/?p=3009The UN High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, composed of political appointees from every continent, recently issued a...]]>

The UN High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, composed of political appointees from every continent, recently issued a highly-anticipated report proposing a new framework for measuring economic, social, and environmental progress and performance. The report urges world leaders to pursue development goals focused on several critical issues that have been sidelined for too long, including governance and rule of law, inequality and social and economic exclusion, and sustainability.

As the report makes clear, a rising tide does not necessarily raise all boats, thus a clear commitment to combating inequality and advancing social and economic inclusion must be at the core of the global development agenda. This embrace of social and economic rights indicators presents a direct challenge to the longstanding, wealth-based growth paradigm of development. Furthermore, the recognition that standard growth trajectories are wreaking havoc on the environment, threatening the inheritance of future generations and disproportionately impacting the world’s most vulnerable populations, suggests that sustainability must become a central objective of growth and development policies. This furthers the embrace of sustainable development that began in the 1980s and was eloquently encapsulated in the 1987 Brundtland Report. Lastly, the report puts governance, rule of law, and human rights at the center of the development agenda—both as an ends and as a means to achieving development goals.

Still, turning big ideas into actions inherently faces political challenges. The proliferation of various indicators in recent years demonstrates the technical feasibility of measuring everything from rule of law to sustainability. But the data collection process remains controlled by political will and the financial resources made available.

Moreover, different indicators can favor some countries over others or incentivize perverse government policies. Therefore, despite the emerging global consensus that multifaceted metrics of development are desperately needed, it remains uncertain whether the international community will be able to come to a consensus around a clear set of alternatives.

In my next post I will discuss one set of norms regarding human wellbeing and progress that have already been endorsed and adopted by the global community: human rights.

As I discussed in my last post, governments and international organizations are increasingly taking an interest in alternative ways to measure countries’ development, outside of the traditional measure of gross domestic product.

For example, in 2008, the French government commissioned a report from a group of leading social scientists, known as the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, to explore the limitations of current economic and social measures and to propose alternatives. The major recommendations of the commission’s 2009 Report are instructive and mark a departure from conventional wisdom. The commission concluded that, in today’s complex economy, better measures of economic performance are required, specifically ones that take into account household income, wealth distribution, and inequality. More important, the commission endorsed a multidimensional take on wellbeing, which considers factors such as health, education, ability to find work, political voice and governance, social connections and relationships, sustainability and environmental concerns, and economic and physical insecurity. In a relatively radical departure from previous thinking, the commission argued that this diverse set of quality-of-life indicators should consider inequalities, not just overall wealth.

The small kingdom of Bhutan has also become a leader in the alternative development measurement movement. Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) index, first developed by King Jigme Singye Wangchuck in 1972, aims to chart progress according to the deceptively straightforward metric of “happiness.” Recognizing, as Aristotle did, that happiness does not derive solely from material possessions, the Bhutanese government has rejected per capita income as a measure of wellbeing. Calculated primarily based on household surveys and government data, the index considers seven core indicators of wellbeing: economic, environmental, physical, mental, workplace, social, and political.

The Bhutanese government has earned international recognition for its alternative index, successfully championing a UN resolution to include happiness as a development indicator. To be sure, Bhutan’s index is idealistic and might be too complex to be adopted on a global scale. But this tiny country has helped change the thinking of leading development economists and world leaders. Last year, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a “new economic paradigm” based on the premise that “Social, economic and environmental well-being are indivisible. Together they define gross global happiness.” With such high-level backing from world leaders, governments, and international organizations, “alternative” measurements of development and wellness might soon be commonplace.

]]>http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/08/14/governments-redefining-development/feed/1http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/08/14/governments-redefining-development/Rethinking the Meaning of Developmenthttp://feeds.cfr.org/~r/DevelopmentChannel/tlawson-remer/~3/QHR3_KFUvoA/
http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/08/12/rethinking-the-meaning-of-development/#commentsMon, 12 Aug 2013 15:04:14 +0000http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/?p=2984How should the status and progress of a country or people be measured and judged? For over six decades, the...]]>

How should the status and progress of a country or people be measured and judged? For over six decades, the standard metric has been economic production and consumption-—per capita income, as variously defined by gross domestic product (GDP), gross national product (GNP), and gross national income (GNI). These measures are commonly used as shorthand to describe the quality of life in a given country, but in reality they represent a dramatic oversimplification of wellbeing. As a thought exercise, consider the protagonists of Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas Carol:judging by their per capita incomes alone, Uncle Scrooge is far better off than Tiny Tim. But the moral of the play is that wealthy Scrooge lives an undoubtedly miserable life whereas Tiny Tim is poor but happy.

Thankfully, over the past thirty years, some leading policymakers, development practitioners, and scholars have begun to challenge traditional measures of wellbeing. As a result, a plethora of alternative indices designed to measure countries’ performance on a range of social and political metrics have emerged. Indicators now exist to measure elusive characteristics such as democratic governance; voice and accountability; rule of law; civil and political rights; sustainability and natural resource consumption; and business climate. Many researchers and policymakers now agree that economic wealth as traditionally measured does not capture progress; that a focus on income alone ignores other essential issues; and that new and more appropriate metrics are needed.

The first breakthrough moment in this movement came in the early 1990s with the establishment and wide acceptance of the Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI attempts to give a single concrete number to the complex concept of development, as defined by the economist Amartya Sen. This framework measures development not just in terms of income, but in terms of the ability of individuals to live free and meaningful lives. The human capabilities approach views income as a means to realizing freedom, not as an ends in itself, so the focus is on all the aspects of human development.

Around the same time, another equally powerful current of thought brought environmental sustainability to the fore. The global environmental movement first gained traction in 1960s with the recognition that the world’s economic growth trajectory was wreaking havoc on the environment and causing irreparable harm in the form of acid rain, dead bald eagles, deforestation, and toxic water and soil. Environmentalists such as Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, argued that any conception of wealth or wellbeing that fails to consider natural resource depletion is fundamentally flawed and misleading–if economic growth comes at the cost of environmental damage, then the depletion of shared natural resources should be taken into account in any honest calculation. Although this concept continues to face resistance from many who see real and immediate financial costs from prioritizing environmental sustainability in terms of profitability, growth, and jobs, the idea also has some powerful allies, including the World Bank, which is currently championing Natural Resource Accounting (NRA). Like a banker marking down the value of a spendthrift’s trust fund, NRA deducts the destruction and depletion of natural resources from countries’ economic production figures.

Advocates of sustainable development view environmental sustainability as an issue of inter-generational equity. As first crystallized with the publication of the Brundtland Report in 1987–issued by a high level UN commission chaired by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland–sustainability should be viewed as integral to economic and social performance, and is required to ensure opportunity for future generations.

These newer measurements have critics, and have yet to realize the status of ubiquitous shorthand descriptors enjoyed by per capita income measures. Some skeptics argue that although fine in theory, in practice both the HDI and NRA, along with the myriad of other measures, distort and mislead because they aim to count what cannot be counted. Other critics point to practical issues of public understanding – whereas the meaning of GDP is relatively clear, alternative measures are more complex and difficult to understand. Others argue that per capita income is both a powerful determinant and reasonable proxy for other aspects of development, since poorer countries also almost invariably have more poor people–rendering other measures redundant and distracting. Then, of course, there are those who benefit from the status quo, and would stand to lose from a shift in policies towards new development approaches.

This debate is evolving quickly and the policy implications of what we measure and how we measure it are profound. I will be exploring this issue in greater depth over the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more posts on measuring development, and comment or email me to contribute to the conversation.

]]>http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/08/12/rethinking-the-meaning-of-development/feed/12http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/08/12/rethinking-the-meaning-of-development/Responses to “The Need for Lawyers Without Borders”http://feeds.cfr.org/~r/DevelopmentChannel/tlawson-remer/~3/W744Kb24nHY/
http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/2013/07/23/responses-to-the-need-for-lawyers-without-borders/#commentsTue, 23 Jul 2013 14:00:14 +0000http://blogs.cfr.org/development-channel/?p=2904My blog post last week proposing a global “Lawyers Without Borders” organization to represent local communities on international economic law...]]>

My blog post last week proposing a global “Lawyers Without Borders” organization to represent local communities on international economic law issues generated such an unusual number of emails and comments I think it is worthwhile to highlight a couple responses.

Robin Ford wrote: “Thanks for this timely article. I agree, but would go further. There are many organizations that provide pro bono assistance… Advocates for International Development, the international wing of the American Bar Association, the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association, Human Rights Watch, and more. I am sure they talk to each[other] from time [to time], but an overall coordinating and strategy-setting body would help them all be more productive. In addition, I would like to see the creation of a group of superb commercial lawyers willing to work for less to assist lesser developed countr[ies’] governments with matters such as debt financing and public-private initiatives. Far too often such governments are disadvantaged…when their legal team is not as skilled as the one acting for the other side of a deal.”

Garth Meintjes, executive director of the International Senior Lawyers Project, wrote: “The solution that you propose already exists, albeit not yet at the scale and scope that you envision. The International Senior Lawyers Project is a free resource for communities and developing country governments who need high-level legal expertise. ISLP works internationally on an attorney-client basis to empower those who lack the legal knowledge or representation to manage their resources effectively and to develop their economies. ISLP’s staff in New York, London, and Paris are working hard to reach more clients and to recruit more volunteers. Please visit ISLP.org for more information.”

What did you think about the blog post? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Please post them in the comments below